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102-579: The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the Southern United States . The term was first used to describe the states which were most economically dependent on plantations and slavery , specifically Louisiana , Mississippi , Alabama , Georgia , and South Carolina . After the American Civil War ended in 1865, the region suffered economic hardship and

204-428: A change from largely self-sufficient farms, based on corn and pigs, to the growing of a cash crop of cotton or tobacco. Cotton cultivation took twice as many hours of work as raising corn. The farmers lost their freedom to determine what crops they would grow, ran into increasing indebtedness, and many were forced into tenancy or into working for someone else. Some out-migration occurred, especially to Texas, but over time,

306-468: A nation. Gussow (2010) examines the conflict between blues musicians and Black ministers in the region between 1920 and 1942. The ministers condemned blues music as "devil's music". In response, some blues musicians satirized preachers in their music, as for example in the song, "He Calls That Religion", by the blues group Mississippi Sheiks . The lyrics accused Black ministers of engaging in and fomenting sinful behavior. The Black residents were poor, and

408-450: A part of the country which was distinguished by the colour of the soil. The part of the country possessing this thick, dark, and naturally rich soil was, of course, the part of the South where the slaves were most profitable, and consequently they were taken there in the largest numbers. Later, and especially since the war, the term seems to be used wholly in a political sense—that is, to designate

510-479: A place that was only a long day’s journey away." In this view, Southern Blacks were the agents of the Great Migration and not passive objects. Instead, they actively fled oppression and sought freedom, especially in the years between World War I and World War II. A slow mechanization of Delta agriculture during the first phase of the Great Migration was the effect of the migration of a workforce, not its cause. It

612-456: A source of labor. In the early years of European colonization, enslaved African laborers brought critical knowledge and techniques for the cultivation and processing of both rice and indigo. Hundreds of thousands of Africans were captured, sold and transported as slaves from West Africa to North America. The invention of the cotton gin in the late 18th century made profitable the cultivation of short-staple cotton. This type could not be grown in

714-445: Is 200 miles (320 km) long and 87 miles (140 km) across at its widest point, encompassing about 4,415,000 acres (17,870 km ), or, almost 7,000 square miles of alluvial floodplain . Originally covered in hardwood forest across the bottomlands, it was developed as one of the richest cotton -growing areas in the nation before the American Civil War (1861–1865). The region attracted many speculators who developed land along

816-525: Is a continental landmass comprising the continents of North America and South America . [REDACTED] Africa [REDACTED] Antarctica [REDACTED] Asia [REDACTED] Australia [REDACTED] Europe [REDACTED] North America [REDACTED] South America [REDACTED] Afro-Eurasia [REDACTED] Americas [REDACTED] Eurasia [REDACTED] Oceania Mississippi Delta The Mississippi Delta, also known as

918-558: Is common to fried catfish plates in the Delta. Chow Mein arrived to the Delta as it did in many different parts of the United States, with Chinese immigrants arriving around the turn of the century. Hoover Sauce is a twist on traditional Cantonese duck sauce introduced by the Hoover family in the mid-20th century. The sauce is usually served with meat such as locally hunted duck or steak. It

1020-544: Is currently a Republican Party stronghold. It is contrasted with the Mid-South and Tidewater region , as well as the Upper South and the border states . The term "Deep South" is defined in a variety of ways. Most definitions include the following states: Louisiana , Mississippi , Alabama , Georgia , and South Carolina . Texas and Florida are sometimes included, due to being peripheral states, having coastlines with

1122-507: Is related in part to economics, as few African American parents in the poor region can pay to send their children to private schools. Suzanne Eckes of The Journal of Negro Education wrote, "Although de facto segregation in schools exists throughout the country, the de facto segregation that exists in the Mississippi Delta region is somewhat unique." During the years of segregation, public school systems did not know how to classify

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1224-573: Is that white southerners with conservative views on taxes, moral values, and national security would vote for Democratic presidential candidates who didn't share their views. They did that as part of a strategy for maintaining white supremacy in the South. Kevin Phillips states that, "Beginning in 1948, however, the white voters of the Black Belts shifted partisan gears and sought to lead the Deep South out of

1326-437: Is unique to the Delta. Soul Food broadly is found sold and cooked throughout the Delta. The region's large African American population and historical roots make this cuisine of the Delta's truly endemic food traditions. Many dishes such as fried okra , mashed potatoes , black-eyed peas , fried chicken , cornbread , and others are associated with soul food in the Delta. The Mississippi Department of Corrections operates

1428-524: Is used for carrying out statistical analysis. The division's first publication was the book World's Women 2000: Trends and Statistics in 2000. According to the UN, the assignment of countries or areas to specific groupings is for statistical convenience and does not imply any assumption regarding political or other affiliation of countries or territories. The following is a non-exhaustive list of subregions, arranged alphabetically by region (i.e., by continent); in

1530-646: The 1964 presidential election , "Once again, the high level of support for Goldwater in the Deep South, and especially their Black Belt counties, spoke to the enduring significance of white resistance to black progress." White southern voters consistently voted for the Democratic Party for many years to hold onto Jim Crow Laws. Once Franklin D. Roosevelt came to power in 1932 , the limited southern electorate found itself supporting Democratic candidates who frequently did not share its views. Journalist Matthew Yglesias argues: The weird thing about Jim Crow politics

1632-509: The 2020 presidential election , the state of Georgia was considered a toss-up state hinting at a possible Democratic shift in the area. It ultimately voted Democratic, in favor of Joe Biden. During the 2021 January Senate runoff elections, Georgia also voted for two Democrats, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock , with Warnock winning re-election to a full term the following year. Republicans currently hold every statewide office, its state Supreme Court, and its legislature. From colonial times to

1734-566: The American Civil War , Florida and Texas were sparsely populated and not fully settled, with Florida and Texas being the least-populated and third least-populated of the 11 Confederate states, respectively. When "Deep South" first began to gain mainstream currency in print in the middle of the 20th century, it applied to the states and areas of South Carolina, Georgia, southern Alabama, northern Florida, Mississippi, northern Louisiana , West Tennessee , southern Arkansas , and eastern Texas, all historical areas of cotton plantations and slavery. This

1836-626: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 . Since then, upwards of 90 percent of African Americans in the South have voted for the Democratic Party, including 93 percent for Obama in 2012. Historian Thomas Sugrue attributes the political and cultural changes, along with the easing of racial tensions, as the reason why Southern voters began to vote for Republican national candidates, in line with their political ideology. Since then, white Deep South voters have tended to vote for Republican candidates in most presidential elections. Times

1938-540: The Civil Rights Movement and gaining passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . The Delta is strongly associated as the place where several genres of popular music originated, including Delta blues and rock and roll . The mostly Black sharecroppers and tenant farmers had lives marked by poverty and hardship but they expressed their struggles in music that became the beat, rhythm and songs of cities and

2040-516: The Gulf of Mexico , their history of slavery, large African American populations, and being part of the historical Confederate States of America . The eastern part of Texas is the westernmost extension of the Deep South, typically the area east of Dallas . North Florida is also part of the Deep South region, typically the area north of Ocala . West Tennessee is sometimes included due to its history of slavery, its prominence in cotton production during

2142-716: The Indian Removal Act of 1830 extinguished Native American claims to these lands. The Five Civilized Tribes and others were mostly removed west of the Mississippi River, and European-American settlement expanded at a rapid rate in Georgia , Alabama , Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas . In the areas of greatest cotton cultivation, whites were far outnumbered by their slaves. Many slaves were transported to Delta towns by riverboat from slave markets in New Orleans , which became

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2244-542: The Mississippi State Penitentiary (Parchman, MSP) in unincorporated Sunflower County , within the Mississippi Delta. John Buntin of Governing magazine said that MSP "has long cast its shadow over the Mississippi Delta, including my hometown of Greenville, Mississippi ". As of 2005, the majority of students in public schools in the Mississippi Delta are Black, and the majority of private school students are White. This de facto racial segregation

2346-480: The Natchez area and indigo in the lower Mississippi. French yeomen settlers, supported by extensive families, had begun the back-breaking process of clearing the land to establish farms. European settlers in the region attempted to enslave local Native Americans for labor, though this proved unsuccessful as they frequently escaped. By the 18th century, the settlers had switched to importing enslaved Africans instead as

2448-616: The Potomac River , and that Southern society resembled those of the Caribbean. Although often used in history books to refer to the seven states that originally formed the Confederacy, the term "Deep South" did not come into general usage until long after the Civil War ended. For at least the remainder of the 19th century, "Lower South" was the primary designation for those states. At the time of

2550-466: The United Nations (UN) is in charge of the collection, processing, and dissemination of statistical information for the UN. In 1999, it developed a system of macro-geographical (continental) regions, subregions, and other selected economic groups to report advances towards achieving numerous millennial development goals worldwide. These statistical divisions were devised for statistical purposes and

2652-457: The Upper South occurred in 1928 , 1948 , 1964 , 1968 , and, to a lesser extent, in 1952 , 1956 , 1992 , and 2008 . Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee fared well in the Deep South in the 2008 Republican primaries , losing only one state (South Carolina) while running (he had dropped out of the race before the Mississippi primary). Georgia is currently considered a Swing state . In

2754-622: The Yazoo–Mississippi Delta , or simply the Delta , is the distinctive northwest section of the U.S. state of Mississippi (and portions of Arkansas and Louisiana ) that lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. The region has been called "The Most Southern Place on Earth" ("Southern" in the sense of "characteristic of its region, the American South "), because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history. The Delta

2856-433: The tamale . It is up for debate as to their origins, but it is strongly suggested they arrived in the Delta with migrant Mexican laborers in the early twentieth century and are attested to around that time period in blues music centering around the dish. While their most common filling is pork they differ from the traditional tamale in that they are made from corn meal rather than masa and boiled rather than steamed. Today

2958-510: The 150 largest population centers in the United States are ranked below: * Indicates state capital Other substantial cities include: Other cities sometimes included as part of the Deep South: * As part of the Sun Belt and Atlantic Plain , the Deep South tends to have a Subtropical climate with long hot summers and short mild winters. The 35th parallel north , which is used to define

3060-428: The 1964 Freedom Summer . The Deep South has three major Metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) located solely within its boundaries, with populations exceeding 1,000,000 residents (Four including Memphis). Atlanta , the 8th largest metro area in the United States, is the Deep South's largest population center, followed by Memphis , New Orleans , and Birmingham . The 17 Deep South metropolitan areas (MSAs) within

3162-446: The 19th century to satisfy demand. They quickly moved out of field labor, saving money as communities in order to establish themselves as merchants, often in the small rural towns. During the 1920s and 1930s, in the aftermath of the increasing mechanization of Delta farms that reduced the need for labor, displaced whites and African Americans began to leave the land and move to towns and cities. Tens of thousands of Black laborers left

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3264-421: The Caribbean plantation model, relying on tobacco as a cash crop from the start. Tidewater had few urban centers, instead establishing multiple markets along tributaries. Cotton and rice operations were large and factory-like, while tobacco profits hinged on skilled, careful, and efficient labor units. Despite being the southernmost part of the continental United States, South Florida is not considered part of

3366-403: The Civil War. Both Black and White migrants flowed into Mississippi, using their labor to clear land and sell timber in order to buy land. By the end of the 19th century, Black farmers made up two-thirds of the independent farmers in the Mississippi Delta. In 1890, the white-dominated state legislature passed a new state constitution effectively disenfranchising most blacks in the state. In

3468-405: The Deep South is considered to be "an area roughly coextensive with the old cotton belt , from eastern North Carolina through South Carolina, west into East Texas, with extensions north and south along the Mississippi." The Deep South is generally associated historically with cotton production. The 11 Confederate States, including the Deep South, were overwhelmingly rural. New Orleans , Louisiana

3570-437: The Deep South who reported only a single European-American ancestry group, the 1980 census showed the following self-identification in each state in this region: These figures do not take into account people who self-identified as English and some other ancestral group. When the two were added together, people who self-identified as being English with other ancestry, made up an even larger portion of southerners. As of 2003,

3672-635: The Deep South, although there were local exceptions wherever conditions did not support the system. The sharp division between town and country, the intensive use of a few cash crops, and the high proportion of slaves, all differed from the Upland South. The Tidewater region , encompassing the Chesapeake Bay and Eastern North Carolina , stands out as different from both the Deep South and Upland South. Its history of slavery originated in Virginia and predated

3774-617: The Deep South, characterized by very rich black soil that supported cotton plantations, is a geological formation known as the Black Belt . The Black Belt has since become better known as a sociocultural region ; in this context it is a term used for much of the Cotton Belt, which had a high percentage of African-American slave labor. The Mississippi Delta has been called " The Most Southern Place on Earth ", because of its unique racial, cultural, and economic history. The colony of South Carolina

3876-665: The Deep South. It has a tropical climate and high levels of migration from the Caribbean and Latin America , particularly in the densely populated Miami metropolitan area . After 1950, the region became a major center of the Civil Rights Movement , including: the work of Martin Luther King Jr. , the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott , the 1960 founding of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and

3978-734: The Delta region were absorbed by large corporate-owned agribusinesses , and the smallest Delta communities have stagnated . One company that served the agricultural industry in the region was an aerial crop dusting service that eventually became Delta Air Lines , which is currently a major U.S. based passenger air carrier. Since the late 20th century, lower Delta agriculture has increasingly been dominated by families and nonresident corporate entities that hold large landholdings. Their operations are heavily mechanized with low labor costs. Such farm entities are capital-intensive, where hundreds and thousands of acres are used to produce market-driven crops such as cotton, sugar, rice, and soybeans. Remnants of

4080-403: The Delta's economy, particularly in the areas of Tunica and Vicksburg. A large cultural influence in the region is its history of hunting and fishing. Hunting in the Delta is primarily for game such as whitetail deer, wild turkey, and waterfowl, along with many small game species (squirrel, rabbit, dove, quail, raccoon, etc.) For many years, the hunting and fishing have also attracted visitors in

4182-491: The Delta, which has many black-majority state legislative districts. Much of the Delta is included in Mississippi's 2nd congressional district , represented by Democrat Bennie Thompson . Chinese immigrants began settling in Bolivar County and other Delta counties as plantation workers in the 1870s, though most Delta Chinese families migrated to the state between the 1900s and 1930s. Most of these immigrants worked to leave

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4284-542: The Delta-style tamale , also known as the hot tamale . For more than two centuries, agriculture has been the mainstay of the Delta economy. Sugar cane and rice were introduced to the region by European settlers from the Caribbean in the 18th century. Sugar and rice production were centered in southern Louisiana , and later in the Arkansas Delta . Early agriculture also included limited tobacco production in

4386-516: The Democratic Party has won in the Deep South since the late 20th century include: the 1976 election when Georgia native Jimmy Carter received the Democratic nomination, the 1980 election when Carter won Georgia; the 1992 election when Arkansas native and former governor Bill Clinton won Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, and Arkansas, the 1996 election when the incumbent president Clinton again won Louisiana, Tennessee and Arkansas, and when Georgia

4488-460: The Democratic Party. Upcountry, pineywoods and bayou voters felt less hostility towards the New Deal and Fair Deal economic and caste policies which agitated the Black Belts, and for another decade, they kept The Deep South in the Democratic presidential column. In the 1968 election , George Wallace carried all five Deep South states except for South Carolina, as well as Arkansas . Phillips emphasizes

4590-623: The Jim Crow south for better opportunities in the Northeast and Midwest in the Great Migration , settling in cities such as St. Louis , Chicago , Cleveland , and New York City . It was not until the Great Depression years of the 1930s and later that large-scale farm mechanization came to the region. The mechanization of agriculture and the availability of domestic work outside the Delta spurred

4692-533: The Mississippi Delta brought with them elements of Italian cuisine to the region, and possibly most importantly, elements of Southern Italian music such as the mandolin, which became a part of the music of the Mississippi Delta Blues. Mexican immigrants to the Mississippi Delta greatly influenced the cuisine of the Mississippi Delta, leading to the development of one of the Deltas most famous culinary inventions,

4794-637: The Mississippi River, notably in 1927 and 2011 . Despite the name, this region is not the delta of the Mississippi River . The shifting river delta at the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf Coast lies some 300 miles south of this area in Louisiana , and is referred to as the Mississippi River Delta . Rather, the Mississippi Delta is part of an alluvial plain , created by regular flooding of

4896-436: The Mississippi and Yazoo rivers over thousands of years. The climate is humid subtropical, with short mild winters, and long, hot and wet summers. The land is flat and contains some of the most fertile soil in the world as part of the Mississippi embayment . It is two hundred miles long and seventy miles across at its widest point, encompassing approximately 4,415,000 acres, or, some 7,000 square miles of alluvial floodplain. On

4998-538: The Mississippi state legislature passed a new constitution which effectively disenfranchised most blacks by use of such devices as poll taxes , literacy tests and grandfather clauses , which withstood court challenges. If one method was overturned by the courts, the state would come up with another to continue exclusion of blacks from the political system. Unable to vote, they could not participate on juries. The state passed legislation to impose racial segregation and other aspects of Jim Crow . This system of oppression

5100-415: The UN geoscheme, higher-level, macro-geographical regions are arranged to the extent possible according to continents. Sequence used in the list (not all criteria are applied to each continent): Afro-Eurasia is a continental landmass comprising the continents of Africa , Asia , and Europe . Eurasia is a continental mainland comprising the continents of Asia and Europe . The Americas

5202-403: The alluvial soils of the region would always renew, the agricultural boom from the 1830s to the late 1850s caused extensive soil exhaustion and erosion . Lacking agricultural knowledge, planters continued to raise cotton the same way after the Civil War. Plantations before the war were generally developed on ridges near the rivers, which were used for transportation of products to market. Most of

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5304-709: The antebellum period, and cultural similarity to the Mississippi Delta region. The Arkansas Delta is also sometimes included, though Arkansas is usually considered to be "in the peripheral" or Rim South rather than the Deep South. Seven states seceded from the United States before the firing on Fort Sumter and the start of the American Civil War , which originally formed the Confederate States of America . In order of secession, they are South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas. The first six states to secede were those that held

5406-409: The area. By the end of the century, two-thirds of the independent farmers in the Mississippi Delta were Black. But, the extended low price of cotton had caused many to go deeply into debt, and gradually they had to sell off their lands, as they had a harder time getting credit than did White farmers. From 1910 to 1920, the first and second generations of African Americans after slavery lost their stake in

5508-531: The counties where the black people outnumber the white. Most White people in the Deep South who identified themselves with one European ethnic group in the 1980 census self-identified as English . This occurred in every southern state with the exception of Louisiana where more White people self-identified as French than English. A large number of the White population also derives from ethnic groups of Ireland ( Irish and Ulster Scots ). With regard to White people in

5610-439: The dish is associated mainly with African American chefs despite originating from different cultural foodways. Fried Catfish is a staple of the Mississippi Delta. There exist a number of catfish farms throughout the region which supply fresh and local fish to kitchens across the Delta. The meal consists of catfish filets which are breaded and fried. Many sides exist for the dish and are nonessential. One such side, hushpuppies ,

5712-596: The early twentieth century, much of the Lower South had a black majority. Three Southern states had populations that were majority- black : Louisiana (from 1810 until about 1890), South Carolina (until the 1920s), and Mississippi (from the 1830s to the 1930s). In the same period, Georgia, Alabama, and Florida had populations that were nearly 50% black, while Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia had black populations approaching or exceeding 40%. Texas' black population reached 30%. Subregion The Statistics Division of

5814-534: The east, it is bounded by bluffs extending beyond the Yazoo River. The Delta includes all or part of the following counties: Washington , Western DeSoto , Humphreys , Carroll , Issaquena , Western Panola , Quitman , Bolivar , Coahoma , Leflore , Sunflower , Sharkey , Tate , Tunica , Tallahatchie , Western Holmes , Western Yazoo , Western Grenada , and Warren . In the 21st century, about one-third of Mississippi's African American population resides in

5916-602: The fields, becoming merchants in the small rural towns. As these have declined, along with other Delta residents ethnic Chinese have moved to cities or other states. Their descendants represent most of the ethnic Asian residents of the Delta recorded in censuses. While many descendants of the Delta Chinese have left the Delta, their population has increased in the state. The Mississippi Delta received waves of immigration from three areas which have provided many of America's immigrants: China, Mexico, and Italy. The Italians of

6018-421: The first frost. Some common environments include bayous and swamplands, as well as the southern pine forests . Due to its proximity to the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean , hurricanes are also a frequently-occurring natural disaster. Booker T. Washington wrote in his 1901 autobiography I have often been asked to define the term "Black Belt". So far as I can learn, the term was first used to designate

6120-508: The fourth largest city in the country by 1840. Other slaves were transported downriver from slave markets at Memphis and Louisville . Still others were transported by sea in the coastwise slave trade . By this time, slavery had long been established as a racial caste. African Americans for generations worked the commodity plantations, which they made extremely profitable. In the opinion of Jefferson Davis , typical of that of Mississippian whites of his day, Africans being held in slavery reflected

6222-536: The fringe of the Deep South, during the " Solid South " period. At the turn of the 20th century, all Southern states, starting with Mississippi in 1890, passed new constitutions and other laws that effectively disenfranchised the great majority of blacks and sometimes many poor whites as well. Blacks were excluded subsequently from the political system entirely. The white Democratic-dominated state legislatures passed Jim Crow laws to impose white supremacy , including caste segregation of public facilities. In politics,

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6324-406: The land. They had to resort to sharecropping and tenant farming to survive. Sharecropping and tenant farming replaced the slave-dependent plantation system. African American families retained some autonomy, rather than working on gangs of laborers. As many were illiterate, they were often taken advantage of by the planters' accounting. The number of lynchings of Black men rose in the region at

6426-485: The largest percentage of slaves. Ultimately, the Confederacy included eleven states. A large part of the original "Cotton Belt" is sometimes included in Deep South terminology. This was considered to extend from South Carolina Lowcountry to Georgia and North Florida , through the Gulf States as far west as East Texas , including West Tennessee , eastern Arkansas, and up the Mississippi embayment . The inner core of

6528-501: The lower Delta. Shifts away from the river as a main transportation and trading route to railroads and, more significantly, highways, have left the river cities struggling for new roles and businesses. Due to the growth of the automobile industry in the South, many parts suppliers have opened facilities in the Delta (as well as on the Arkansas Delta side of the Mississippi River, another area of high poverty). The 1990s state legalization of casino gambling in Mississippi has boosted

6630-573: The majority of Black Americans in the South live in the Black Belt in the American South from Virginia to Texas. Hispanic and Latino Americans largely started arriving in the Deep South during the 1990s, and their numbers have grown rapidly. Politically they have not been very active. Political expert Kevin Phillips states that, "From the end of Reconstruction until 1948, the Deep South Black Belts, where only whites could vote, were

6732-462: The map on the right. In 1765, London philanthropist Dr. John Fothergill remarked on the cultural differences of the British American colonies southward from Maryland and those to the north, suggesting that Southerners were more similar to the people of the Caribbean than to the colonies to the north. A visiting French dignitary concurred in 1810 that American customs seemed "entirely changed" over

6834-417: The migration as a flight for freedom from the political terror of lynchings and the hardening of Jim Crow restrictions on Black freedom: "They did what human beings looking for freedom, throughout history, have often done. They left." Nicholas Lemann notes the onset of the Great Migration coincided with the passage of immigration restrictions that throttled the supply of immigrants who had been willing to take

6936-509: The migration of Delta residents from the region. Farming was unable to absorb the available labor force , and entire families moved together, many going north on the railroad to Chicago. People from the same towns often settled near each other. The view that mechanization sparked the Great Migration—both Black and White—has been challenged by two of the most prominent recent chroniclers of the event. Isabel Wilkerson characterizes

7038-496: The musicians and ministers competed for their money. The Great Migration to northern cities, beginning before World War I, seriously depleted Black communities and churches, but the musicians sparked off each other in the industrial cities, with blues in Chicago and St. Louis . Following is a list of various festivals in the Delta: Hot tamales are a Delta-endemic derivation of

7140-530: The nation's leading Democratic Party bastions." From the late 1870s to the mid-1960s, conservative whites of the Deep South held control of state governments and overwhelmingly identified with and supported the Democratic Party . The most powerful leaders belonged to the party's moderate-to-conservative wing. The Republican Party would only control mainly mountain districts in Southern Appalachia , on

7242-435: The next three decades, most blacks lost their lands due to tight credit and political oppression . African Americans had to resort to sharecropping and tenant farming to survive. Their political exclusion was maintained by the whites until after the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. The majority of residents in several counties in the region are still Black, although more than 400,000 African Americans left

7344-582: The northern boundary of the subtropics , defines the southern border of Tennessee , and the border between North Carolina and Georgia . The climate tends to display more pronounced Subtropical characteristics the closer one gets to the Gulf Coast . For example, the Deep South substantially overlaps with the range of the American alligator . Crops grow readily in the Deep South due to its climate consistently providing growing seasons of at least six months before

7446-517: The oppression and violence in the South. Beginning with the Goldwater–Johnson election of 1964, a significant contingent of white conservative voters in the Deep South stopped supporting national Democratic Party candidates and switched to the Republican Party. They still would vote for many Democrats at the state and local level into the 1990s. Political scientist Seth McKee concluded that in

7548-483: The poor rural South, as well as poor whites. In the post- World War II era, Democratic Party presidents and national politicians began to support desegregation and other elements of the Civil Rights Movement , from President Harry S. Truman 's desegregating the military, to John F. Kennedy 's support for non-violent protests. These efforts culminated in Lyndon B. Johnson 's important work in gaining Congressional approval for

7650-505: The population continued to grow and the farms were subdivided smaller and smaller. Growing discontent helped give rise to the Populist movement in the early 1890s. It represented a sort of class warfare , in which the poor farmers sought to gain more of an economic and political voice. By 1850, the term "Cotton States" was in common use, and the differences between the Deep South (lower) and Upland South (upper) were recognized. A key difference

7752-466: The region became known for decades as the "Solid South." While this disenfranchisement was enforced, all of the states in this region were mainly one-party states dominated by white Southern Democrats . Southern representatives accrued outsized power in the Congress and the national Democratic Party, as they controlled all the seats apportioned to southern states based on total population, but only represented

7854-399: The region's agrarian heritage are scattered along the highways and byways of the lower Delta. Larger communities have survived by fostering economic development in education , government , and medicine . Other endeavors such as catfish , poultry , rice, corn , and soybean farming have assumed greater importance. Today, the monetary value of these crops rivals that of cotton production in

7956-578: The regional tourism economy. The Delta is one of the top waterfowl destinations in the world because it is in the middle of the Mississippi Flyway (the largest of all the migratory bird routes in America). Delta politics was dominated by Democrats during the post-Civil War era, though areas of resistance from blacks and whites remained throughout the era. Some of these Southern Democrats resorted to using fraud, violence, and intimidation to regain control of

8058-426: The richer subset of their white populations. In the 1928 presidential election , Al Smith received serious backlash as a Catholic, but carried all 5 Deep South states, though he nearly lost Alabama. Major demographic changes would ensue in the 20th century. During the two waves of the Great Migration (1916–1970), a total of six million African Americans left the South for the Northeast, Midwest, and West, to escape

8160-399: The riverfronts for cotton plantations; they became wealthy planters dependent on the labor of people they enslaved, who composed the vast majority of the population in these counties well before the Civil War, often twice the number of whites. As the riverfront areas were developed first and railroads were slowly constructed, most of the delta's bottomlands remained undeveloped, even after

8262-481: The southern British colonies from Spanish Florida. Oglethorpe imagined a province populated by "sturdy farmers" who could guard the border; because of this, the colony's charter prohibited slavery. Unfortunately, the ban on slavery was lifted by 1751, and the colony became a royal colony in 1752. At the time of the American Revolution , South Carolina and Georgia were majority African American, as indicated by

8364-511: The state and local levels. This trend culminated in 2014 when the Republicans swept every statewide office in the Deep South region midterm elections . As a result, the Republican party came to control all the state legislatures in the region, as well as all House seats that were not representing majority-minority districts . Presidential elections in which the Deep South diverged noticeably from

8466-430: The state during the Great Migration in the first half of the 20th century, moving to Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western industrial cities. As the agricultural economy does not support many jobs or businesses, the region has attempted to diversify. Lumbering is important and new crops such as soybeans have been cultivated in the area by the largest industrial farmers. At times, the region has suffered heavy flooding from

8568-494: The state legislature in the late 19th century. Civic groups such as the Red Shirts in Mississippi were active against Republicans and blacks, sometimes using violence to suppress their voting for state candidates. But many blacks continued to be elected to local offices, and there was a biracial coalition between Republicans and Populists that briefly gained state power in the late 1880s. To prevent this from happening again, in 1890

8670-505: The territory of Mississippi was still considered wilderness, needing substantial new population. These areas were covered in a heavy dense growth of trees, bushes and vines. Following the Civil War, 90 percent of the bottomlands in Mississippi were still undeveloped. The state attracted thousands of migrants to its frontier. They could trade their labor in clearing the land to eventually purchase it from their sale of lumber. Tens of thousands of new settlers, both Black and White, were drawn to

8772-476: The three-way 1968 presidential election: Wallace won very high support from Black Belt whites and no support at all from Black Belt Negroes. In the Black Belt counties of the Deep South, racial polarization was practically complete. Negroes voted for Hubert Humphrey, whites for George Wallace. GOP nominee Nixon garnered very little backing and counties where Barry Goldwater had captured 90 percent to 100 percent of

8874-660: The time of settling accounts, and researchers have also found a correlation of lynchings to years that were poor economically for the region. The sharecropping and tenant system, with each family making its own decisions, inhibited the use of progressive agricultural techniques in the region. In the late 19th century, the clearing and drainage of wetlands, especially in Arkansas and the Missouri Bootheel , increased lands available for tenant farming and sharecropping. Planters needed workers and recruited Italians and Chinese workers in

8976-467: The upland areas of the South, leading to the rapid development of King Cotton throughout what became known as the Deep South. The demand for labor drove the domestic slave trade , and more than one million African American slaves were forced by sales into the South, taken in a forced migration from families in the Upper South. After continued European-American settlement in the area, congressional passage of

9078-415: The vote in 1964. The Republican Party in the South had been crippled by the disenfranchisement of blacks, and the national party was unable to relieve their past with the South where Reconstruction was negatively viewed. During the Great Depression and the administration of Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt , some New Deal measures were promoted as intending to aid African Americans across the country and in

9180-427: The war, but immigrants resented having to fight when the wealthy could buy their way out of military service. Comparing cotton's preeminence then to that of oil today, Historian Sven Beckert called the Delta "a kind of Saudi Arabia of the early nineteenth century." Demand for cotton remained high until well after the American Civil War , even in an era of falling cotton prices. Though cotton planters believed that

9282-657: The will of Providence, as it led to their Christianizing and to the improvement of their condition, compared to what it would have been had they remained in Africa. According to Davis, the Africans "increased from a few unprofitable savages to millions of efficient Christian laborers." By the early 19th century, cotton had become the Delta's premier crop, for which there was high international demand. Mills in New England and New York also demanded cotton for their industry, and New York City

9384-582: The worst of the jobs of the industrial North, which was relatively free of the suffocating breadth of Jim Crow. Further, Lemann wrote, "it was undeniable that the economic opportunity [in the North] was vastly greater; that moment in the Black rural South was one of the few in American history when virtually every member of a large class of people was guaranteed an immediate quadrupling of income, at least, by simply relocating to

9486-535: Was a major site of racial tension during and after the Reconstruction era . Before 1945, the Deep South was often referred to as the "Cotton States" since cotton was the primary cash crop for economic production. The civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s helped usher in a new era, sometimes referred to as the New South . The Deep South is part of the highly-religious, socially conservative Bible Belt and

9588-498: Was close enough." From the late 1930s through the 1950s, the Delta enjoyed an agriculture boom, as wartime needs followed by reconstruction in Europe and Japan expanded the demand for the Delta region's farm products. As the mechanization of agriculture continued, women left fieldwork and went into service work, while the men drove tractors and worked on the farms. From the 1960s through the 1990s, thousands of small farms and dwellings in

9690-409: Was closely tied to the cotton trade. Many southern planters traveled so frequently there for business that they had favorite hotels. From 1822 cotton-related exports comprised half of all exports from the port of New York City. In 1861 Democratic mayor Fernando Wood called for secession of New York City because of its close business ties to the South. Eventually the city joined the state in supporting

9792-592: Was dominated by a planter class who initially migrated from the British Caribbean island of Barbados, and used the Barbados Slave Code of 1661 as a model to control and terrorize the African American slave population. Barbados provided a steady flow of sugar produced by slave labor to Europe and North America. The Georgia colony was initially founded by James Oglethorpe as a buffer state to defend

9894-443: Was maintained with violence and economic boycotts into the years of increasing activism for civil rights, as blacks worked to regain their constitutional rights as citizens. The Delta counties were sites of fierce and violent resistance to change, with blacks murdered for trying to register to vote or to use public facilities. African Americans were not able to exercise their constitutional rights again until well after their successes in

9996-532: Was not until the mid-1940s that the doctrine of White supremacy demanded that Blacks be displaced. By that time, Lemann writes, Delta Whites feared socio-political changes that might be forced on the Delta by the Roosevelt Democratic coalition and the pressure of returning WWII veterans; the Delta was three-quarters Black, so their voting potential was huge. As Delta native Aaron Henry, who was born in 1922, put it, "They wished we’d go back to Africa, but Chicago

10098-537: Was the Deep South's plantation -style cash crop agriculture (mainly cotton, rice and sugar), using the forced labor of enslaved African Americans on large farms while plantation owners tended to live in towns and cities. This system of plantation farming was originally developed in the Caribbean West Indies and introduced to the United States in South Carolina and Louisiana, from where it spread throughout

10200-456: Was the only populous city in the Confederacy during the Civil War. After the Civil War, the region was economically poor. After Reconstruction ended in 1877, a small fraction of the white population composed of wealthy landowners, merchants and bankers controlled the economy and, largely, the politics. Most white farmers were poor and had to do manual work on their farms to survive. As prices fell, farmers' work became harder and longer because of

10302-471: Was the part of the South many considered the "most Southern." In 1939, Florida was described as "still very largely an empty State," with only North Florida largely settled until after World War II . Later, the general definition expanded to include all of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, as well as often taking in bordering areas of Eastern Arkansas , West Tennessee , East Texas and North Florida . In its broadest application,

10404-452: Was won by Joe Biden in the 2020 United States presidential election . In 1995, Georgia Republican Newt Gingrich was elected by representatives of a Republican-dominated House as Speaker of the House . The incumbent Speaker of the House since October 2023 , Republican Mike Johnson , is from Louisiana. Since the 1990s the white majority has continued to shift toward Republican candidates at

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